Demands are being made on wireless systems to deliver increasing amounts of data to wireless devices. One solution for providing higher data rates is the provision of localized high speed systems within a wide area, slower speed system. Roaming from a localized high speed system to the wide area system is not considered to present a problem. Because the coverage of the wide area system is much greater than that of the localized system, the wireless device simply starts looking for a signal from the wide area system once coverage of the localized system is lost. Roaming from the wide area system to the localized system is more difficult. How does the wireless device detect the presence of the localized system? How frequently does the wireless device need to scan for a signal from the localized system? How can the wireless device eliminate unnecessary scanning, which wastes battery power?
What is needed is a method and apparatus that can answer these questions. A method and apparatus that can intelligently control scanning for localized systems to eliminate unnecessary scanning without increasing latency is needed.